As an avid Harry Potter fan from a very young age, I was excited about the publication and production of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," both the book and the play. While it has its issues, everyone who is complaining about it is simply wrong. As an English major, and one who has taken a class involving theater, I feel absolutely secure in my right to say that.
First we must acknowledge and clear away any issues we might find. One potential problem brought up is that the text might just as well be average or even sub-par fanfiction. Inverse published a piece by Lauren Sarner titled “5 Harry Potter Fan fictions Better Than ‘Harry Potter And The Cursed Child,’” which enumerated such pieces in a handy list. Whether they are actually superior is a matter of opinion. Others have brought up concerns, on platforms such as Reddit, that the characters were formulaic or not true to their book-canon versions. As valid as individual opinion might make those complaints, for better or worse, this text is here to stay, and I feel that we should embrace it wholeheartedly for the wonderful thing that it is.
The main problem with finding problems in the text is, I would argue, that those setting out to take issue with the text have not spent nearly enough time with theater. The beauty of “Cursed Child” is not in its dialogue, nor in its specific characterizations, which are all admittedly rather nonspecific. This, however, is the way that theater works. Much of the specifics are thus left up to the people putting the play together on stage, and that is precisely what makes a play so powerful. Pretty much anyone, even English majors, would say that Shakespeare is better watched than read.
Having spent a not-insignificant amount of time watching plays, and watched a few in London’s West End, where “Cursed Child” is being produced, I can safely say that whatever nostalgia and wonder this text may capture, the grand spectacle of its production on stage will bring the real magic. The production, the direction, and the actors all breathe life into the words on the page. I took an English class my second year of university that focused on translating texts from the page to the stage, so we read texts and then saw them as plays in London. From personal experience, I can vouch for the magic of theater: One of the driest texts we read for that class turned out to be one of the best performances we saw. And after another performance, a friend and I literally skipped across London back to our hostel, filled with the sheer joy and wonder of the performance of the evening.
I have no doubt that the production of "Cursed Child" has spared no expense and has great direction, acting, and effects. Simply to see the Harry Potter world come to life onstage would be magical enough, but the play itself has enough magic that its staging must surely be astounding.
There is a particular moment in "Cursed Child" when Dementors rise up out of the audience, accompanied by what begins as “the feel of a breath of the wind” and continues until it “is hell” (159). Even simply reading the text, I felt a chill. It took only a brief flight of fancy to imagine the feeling of Dementors suddenly rising up out of the audience amid a gust of wind. I dare say that a sprinkle of West End theater magic would transform even the toughest critic, and after all, that was the primarily intended audience of the production. Therefore it is simply a matter of adjusting one’s expectations to more fully understand the intent of the creators. Essentially, any complaints about the text are invalid as it is intended to be a bigger experience than simply to be read; it is meant to be lived.
